Dancing In The Street
Over the years from 1987 to 1997, we clog danced with four different clog exhibition teams giving both free and paid exhibition dances for the public. Many times, the only place they had for us to dance was in the street. So dancing in the street became a way of life for us on the week ends and after work. Here’s some of the streets we danced in.
Dancing In The Street
When we first started clogging, Kristi and Tamara were asked to join the exhibition team for the Oklahoma Land Rush Cloggers operating out of Tulsa. We hauled the girls around to the many exhibitions they participated in and loved watching them dance.
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The girls are dancing in the street at the Tulsa Bluegrass Festival in 1988. Pam and I weren’t doing the exhibitions at this point in time. Kristi and Tamara are the two young ladies in the foreground with their backs to you.
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In 1990, the name of the exhibition clog group was changed to The T – Town Country Cloggers. Pam and I figured we might as well join the exhibition team and join the girls dancing since we were doing all the traveling anyway.
We were all dancing in the street at this 1990 exhibition dance for the T – Town Country Cloggers for the kick off of the 1990 Special Olympics in Tulsa. That old geyser looks like he’s having the time of his life.
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Along about 1990, we started a group called Miscues and the Cuties with some of the other old farts to allow us to kind of do our own thing. We sort became the favorites of the crowd because of our unusual costumes and comic antics or Linda. By 1991, we broke away and started doing or own exhibitions, but we still danced with T-Town.
We did a lot of dancing in the street with the Miscues and the Cuties. This is an exhibition we did at Toppers Camp in 1991 near Fort Gibson Lake. Notice that Pam and I are in the sun and Linda and Charlie are in the shade.
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In 1992, Miscues and the Cuties danced in the street at the Yellow Brick Road Festival in Sedan, Kansas. you can see pieces of me behind the porky Linda in the red dress on the front row and Pam is peeking out from the far end of the back row.
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We danced in the street with the Miscues and Cuties at the Neewollah (Halloween spelled backwards) festival in Coffeeville, Kansas in 1993. That’s me in front and Pam on the far right. If I remember right it was freezing cold on that day.
In 1994, the Miscues. danced in the street in Cherryvale, Kansas, at the Cherry Pickers Festival. That’s Pam on the left, if you look closely you can see my head in there.
In about 1994, we cut all ties with the T – Town Country Cloggers and helped start the TrailBlazer Cloggers in Broken Arrow. We danced a lot in the street with them also.
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This is the Trailblazers dancing in the street at Rooster Days in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, in 1995. Pam and I were really into to the music based on the high kicks on the current step.
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We started the Rhythm Aces about 1996. This is a Rhythm Ace exhibition dance in the streets of Bartlesville at the Grand Opening of the Farmers Market in 1997. I’m at the far right playing music and Pam is next to me.
.Sometimes I wonder why we loved to clog dance so much that we would travel all over North East Oklahoma and Southern Kansas just to dance in the street for a bunch of strangers. We loved every second of it and wouldn’t change it for anything. I regret when my legs gave out on me and I could no longer clog, but that’s life.
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Thanks for reading Dancing In The Street,
Bill